American Cartel: Inside the Fight Against the Opioid Industry

The definitive investigation and exposé of how some of the nation’s largest corporations created and fueled the opioid crisis--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters who first uncovered the dimensions of the deluge of pain pills that ravaged the country and the complicity of a near-omnipotent drug cartel.

AMERICAN CARTEL is an unflinching and deeply documented dive into the culpability of the drug companies behind the staggering death toll of the opioid epidemic. It follows a small band of DEA agents led by Joseph Rannazzisi, a tough-talking New Yorker who had spent a storied thirty years bringing down bad guys; along with a band of lawyers, including West Virginia native Paul Farrell Jr., who fought to hold the drug industry to account in the face of the worst man-made drug epidemic in American history. It is the story of underdogs prevailing over corporate greed and political cowardice, persevering in the face of predicted failure, and how they found some semblance of justice for the families of the dead during the most complex civil litigation ever seen.

The investigators and lawyers discovered hundreds of thousands of confidential corporate emails and memos during courtroom combat with legions of white-shoe law firms defending the opioid industry. One breathtaking disclosure after another--from emails that mocked addicts to invoices chronicling the rise of pill mills--showed the indifference of big business to the epidemic’s toll. The narrative approach echoes such work as A Civil Action and The Insider, moving dramatically between corporate boardrooms, courthouses, lobbying firms, DEA field offices, and Capitol Hill while capturing the human toll of the epidemic on America’s streets.

AMERICAN CARTEL is the story of those who were on the front lines of the fight to stop the human carnage. Along the way, they suffer a string of defeats, some of their careers destroyed by the very same government officials who swore to uphold the law before they begin to prevail over some of the most powerful corporate and political influences in the nation.

Scott Higham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Washington Post. During the past five years, he has been investigating the forces behind the opioid epidemic and was a lead reporter on The Post’s ＂Opioid Files＂ series, which was a Pulitzer Finalist for Public Service in 2020. His work, in collaboration with some of the best reporters, producers and editors in the business, also has been recognized with a George Polk award, a Peabody, an Emmy, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award.

Sari Horwitz has been a reporter at The Washington Post for 38 years and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times. She was a reporter on the Post’s ＂Opioid Files＂ series, which was a Pulitzer Finalist for Public Service in 2020. Horwitz is the co-author Finding Chandra and Sniper and the author of Justice in Indian Country. Her work has been recognized with a George Polk award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Selden Ring for Investigative Reporting, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and the American Society of News Editors Distinguished Writing award.